Conquest of Sicily by
the Anjou French

The Papacy plotted continually to undermine the rule of Frederick
II and his descendants as kings of Sicily. The object was to break
the perceived encirclement of the Papal States by the Holy Roman Empire
and to install a more pliable ruler who would acknowledge the overriding
supremacy in the Kingdom of Sicily of the Pope himself. Pope Gregory
IX's 1228 invasion was repelled by Frederick during his lifetime,
but after Frederick's death Pope Clement IV took a more subtle and
indirect approach to unseat Frederick's illegimate son Manfred. Manfred
ruled the Kingdom of Sicily first as regent and protector for Frederick's
son and grandson and then in his own name.

Clement induced
Charles, Count of Anjou and brother of King Louis IX of France, to
take up his cause. In 1265 Clement declared Charles to be new King
of Sicily--but only as a feudal subject of the Pope, of course. At
first the scheme seemed to work exactly as planned. Charles brought
a powerful army and fleet from France to southern Italy, where he
defeated and executed Manfred and began his rule as Charles I.

The Pope and
Charles had failed, however, to give adequate weight to three factors:
the arrogance that the Anjou French as an occupying army would display
toward the Sicilians, the resentment that would be created as a result
among the normally long-suffering Sicilians--and the effect of the
earlier marriage of Manfred's daughter Constance to Peter III, King
of the Spanish kingdom of Aragon. Sixteen years later, on Easter Sunday
1282, these explosive factors were to produce the bloody Sicilian
Vespers.